After a full week of racing in Ponferrada, it came down to the big finale on Sunday with the 254,8 km, 14 lap men’s road race capping off the action. Riding for his country of Norway, Team Katusha’s Alexander Kristoff took 8th place behind winner Michal Kwiatkowski of Poland on a rain soaked day in Spain.

“The result is good but I thought I could win in the end. It all happened so fast and in the end we were not able to catch the front group. I was disappointed when I crossed the finish line because I was the strongest of my chasing group.”

“However that doesn’t help me when there are still other guys ahead of us. In the race I was never in trouble. It was never too fast for me, but as I had feared, the last lap of the race was at a murderous speed. I could just hang on,” said Alexander Kristoff.

The gold medal went to a Polish rider for the first time with 24 year old Kwiatkowski just edging out Simon Gerrans of Australia for silver and Alejandro Valverde of Spain for the bronze.

Kwiatkowski attacked and bridged across to a lead group with 6 km to go and once he passed them on the final climb, he was never caught again despite a desperate chase from the group behind. The winning time was 6:29.07.

The riders of the Russian National Team spent an active race, attacking several times in the last part of the distance. First it was Iurii Trofimov who went in a breakaway group with more or less 60 km to go. Then, when this group was caught, Sergei Chernetckii tried a new attack. This attempt also was neutralized by the peloton. In the end, Trofimov became the best Russian rider at the finish line, taking 35th place.